Building our retirement home

jk96 · Jul 30, 2015

You mentioned that the basement only makes up a portion of the footprint so I'm assuming part of the house is slab on grade? If so this is starting to make sense, especially if the ledge is part of the slab on grade portion of the house to be poured after the basement. If not I guess we'll just have to wait for pictures.

KiotiKowboy · Jul 30, 2015

jk96 said:
You mentioned that the basement only makes up a portion of the footprint so I'm assuming part of the house is slab on grade? If so this is starting to make sense, especially if the ledge is part of the slab on grade portion of the house to be poured after the basement. If not I guess we'll just have to wait for pictures.

Correct.

As I understood what was being said by the one who originally brought up the issue - the hippie worker - He assumed a brick ledge was planned with the basement wall. Given that the wall was not poured 4" thicker to provide the ledge, it would drive inward the interior space. If the rest of the house was poured to align with that ledge, everything would be similarly compressed. This is where I went directly to the contractor and he said his worker was ill-informed of the plan.

I'm not concerned about any of this except along those exterior basement walls. That's what I'm forced to wait and see exactly how that works.

MacLawn · Jul 30, 2015

Oh me Kow, hippie worker says it for me. Back in mid '60s when I first started in construction, we were made to keep our shirt tails properly tucked inside our pants. I can still hear one supervisor yelling out to a worker, "Boy, put your shirt in your pants!" No shorts were allowed, we had to dress properly. This is in Georgia where summers can make one perspire a bit. To me, I still canno' stand to see sloppily dressed construction workers! All that no shirt mess WAS NOT allowed around here back then. It means a lot. Teaches boys about doing a job right, neatness. Dagnabbit, I was born out of my time. I don't fit our current world. Anyway, I'm liking ye build. Sometimes, we just have to trust the building boys.

JRobyn · Jul 30, 2015

If you are still considering veneer or "synthetic" stone, we went with El Dorado and have been very happy that we did. They claim to have the most natural looking products, and we agree that they are. It is significantly less weight and cost than actual stone veneer, but IS one of the higher cost synthetics. No foundation ledge required so you can use it anywhere. We liked the outside so much that we had two large walls on the inside done in it as well. We used the "Mountain Ledge" because it is very similar to the natural stone in this area of TN. Sorry to sound like one of their sales reps! Eldorado Stone - Manufactured Stone that is as Believable as Natural Stone

- Jay

KiotiKowboy · Jul 30, 2015

Thanks Jay. Always appreciate pics for ideas/alternatives.

MacLawn · Jul 30, 2015

Thanks from me too, Jay! Been wanting to put something on foundation block.

Deere Dude · Jul 30, 2015

JRobyn said:
If you are still considering veneer or "synthetic" stone, we went with El Dorado and have been very happy that we did. They claim to have the most natural looking products, and we agree that they are. It is significantly less weight and cost than actual stone veneer, but IS one of the higher cost synthetics. No foundation ledge required so you can use it anywhere. We liked the outside so much that we had two large walls on the inside done in it as well. We used the "Mountain Ledge" because it is very similar to the natural stone in this area of TN. Sorry to sound like one of their sales reps! Eldorado Stone - Manufactured Stone that is as Believable as Natural Stone

- Jay
View attachment 434828

I see you slipped a reflection of your tractor in the window. Sly.

At the house we are in now I put a wood burning fireplace in an inside wall over a crawl space. For the weight problem on the wall around the fireplace we decided to use manufactured stone from Lowes. I have used real stone on three houses but this makes things so much easier to work with in a pinch. I won't say it is better than the real thing, but to an untrained eye, it is hard to tell the difference.

Kyle_in_Tex · Jul 30, 2015

Deere Dude said:
I see you slipped a reflection of your tractor in the window. Sly.

At the house we are in now I put a wood burning fireplace in an inside wall over a crawl space. For the weight problem on the wall around the fireplace we decided to use manufactured stone from Lowes. I have used real stone on three houses but this makes things so much easier to work with in a pinch. I won't say it is better than the real thing, but to an untrained eye, it is hard to tell the difference.

I saw that too.

It sure is hard to plan on heating your home when it is 100+ degrees outside.

JRobyn · Aug 2, 2015

Glad y'all caught the stealthy Kub!

The local masons that "hung" our synthetic stone called it "lick and stick" ;-) I think that to use it on a poured concrete or block foundation wall you would only need expanded metal lathe, maybe not even that. They have very good and extensive installation instructions on their website for DIYers. We thought maybe we would DIY ours, up until we actually measured and determined how much surface area we would be covering!! Plus, the local masons gave us a quite good price and worked VERY much faster than we would have.

- Jay

jk96 · Aug 2, 2015

We used real stone veneer but same basic installation method. In between switching masons I decided to give it a try. After only about 20 square feet I quickly decided to leave it to the pros. I would still be working on it.